Introduction
www.beaconlaw.co.uk (our website) is provided by Beacon Law Solicitors Limited (‘we’, ‘our’ or ‘us’). We are the controller of personal data obtained via our website, meaning we are the organisation legally responsible for deciding how and for what purposes it is used.
We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share any information relating to you (your personal data) in connection with your use of our website. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or a relevant regulator in the event you have a complaint.
We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you. When we do so we are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).
It is important to note that this policy exclusively relates to your use of this website and the personal data collected by this website. For more information on how and why we collect, store, use and share any information relating to you, in connection with our wider business, please refer to our primary Privacy Policy.
What this policy applies to
This privacy policy relates to your use of our website only.
Throughout our website we may link to other websites owned and operated by certain trusted third parties to make additional products and services available to you. Those third party websites may also gather information about you in accordance with their own separate privacy policies. For privacy information relating to those third party websites, please consult their privacy policies as appropriate.
Personal data we collect about you
The personal data we collect about you depends on the particular activities carried out through our website. We will collect and use the following personal data about you:
- your name, address and contact information, including email address and telephone number;
- location data, if you choose to give this to us;
- details of any information, feedback or other matters you give to us by phone, email, post or via social media;
- your activities on, and use of, our website;
- information about the services we provide to you;
- information about how you use our website and technology systems; and
- your responses to surveys, competitions and promotions.
You must provide this personal data to use our website and the services on it unless we tell you that you have a choice.
We collect and use this personal data for the purposes described in the section ‘How and why we use your personal data’ below.
How your personal data is collected
We collect personal data from you:
- directly, when you enter or send us information, such as when you contact us (including via email), send us feedback, post material to our website and complete customer surveys or participate in competitions via our website; and
- indirectly, such as your browsing activity while on our website. We will usually collect information indirectly using the technologies explained in the section on ‘Cookies and other tracking technologies’ below.
How and why we use your personal data
Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason, e.g.:
- where you have given consent;
- to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
- for the performance of a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract; or
- for our legitimate interests or those of a third party.
A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.
The table below explains what we use your personal data for and why.
| What we use your personal data for | Our reasons |
|---|---|
| Providing services to you | To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract |
| Enforcing legal rights or defend or undertake legal proceedings | Depending on the circumstances: —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations —in other cases, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect our business, interests and rights |
| Customising our website and its content to your particular preferences based on a record of your selected preferences or on your use of our website | Depending on the circumstances: —your consent as gathered by the separate cookies tool on our website —where we are not required to obtain your consent and do not do so, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price If you have provided such a consent you may withdraw it at any time by changing the setting on the cookies tool This will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn |
| Retaining and evaluating information on your recent visits to our website and how you move around different sections of our website for analytics purposes to understand how people use our website so that we can make it more intuitive or to check our website is working as intended | Depending on the circumstances: —your consent as gathered by the separate cookies tool on our website —where we are not required to obtain your consent and do not do so, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price If you have provided such a consent you may withdraw it at any time by changing the setting on the cookies tool This will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn |
| Communications with you not related to marketing, including about changes to our terms or policies or changes to the products AND/OR services or other important notices | Depending on the circumstances: —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations —in other cases, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price |
| Protecting the security of systems and data used to provide the services | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations We may also use your personal data to ensure the security of systems and data to a standard that goes beyond our legal obligations, and in those cases our reasons are for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect systems and data and to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us |
| Statistical analysis to help us understand our customer base | For our legitimate interests, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price |
| Updating and enhancing customer records | Depending on the circumstances: —to perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations —where neither of the above apply, for our legitimate interests, e.g. making sure that we can keep in touch with our customers about products and services |
| Disclosures and other activities necessary to comply with legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations |
| Marketing our services to existing and former customers | For our legitimate interests, i.e. to promote our business to existing and former customers |
| To share your personal data with third parties that will or may take control or ownership of some or all of our business (and professional advisors acting on our or their behalf) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale, initial public offering or in the event of our insolvency In such cases information will be anonymised where possible and only shared where necessary |
Depending on the circumstances: —to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations —in other cases, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect, realise or grow the value in our business and assets |
Marketing
We may use your personal data to send you updates (e.g. by email, text message, telephone, post or social media channels) about our services, including exclusive offers, promotions or new services.
We have a legitimate interest in using your personal data for marketing purposes. This means we do not usually need your consent to send you marketing information. Where this is not the case, we will always ask for your consent.
In all cases, you have the right to opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by contacting us by using the details available in this policy.
We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you ask us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.
We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell it to OR share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.
Who we share your personal data with
We routinely share personal data with:
- third parties we use to help deliver our services to you; and
- other third parties we use to help us run our business, e.g. marketing agencies, website hosts and website analytics providers.
We only allow those organisations to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We ensure all outsourcing providers operate under service agreements that are consistent with our legal and professional obligations, including in relation to confidentiality.
We or the third parties mentioned above may occasionally also share personal data with:
- our and their external auditors, e.g. in relation to the audit of our or their accounts, in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
- our and their professional advisors (such as lawyers and other advisors), in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
- law enforcement agencies, courts, tribunals and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
- other parties that have or may acquire control or ownership of our business (and our or their professional advisers) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition or asset sale or in the event of our insolvency. Usually, information will be anonymised but this may not always be possible and the recipient of any of your personal data will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
If you would like more information about who we share our data with and why, please contact us by using the details available in this policy.
How long your personal data will be kept
We will not keep your personal data for longer than we need it for the purpose for which it was collected or as required by law.
Following the end of the relevant retention period, we will delete or anonymise your personal data.
Transferring your personal data abroad
It is sometimes necessary for us to transfer your personal data to countries outside the UK. This may include countries which do not provide the same level of protection of personal data as the UK.
We will transfer your personal data outside the UK only where:
- the UK government has decided the recipient country ensures an adequate level of protection of personal data (known as an adequacy decision);
- there are appropriate safeguards in place (e.g. standard contractual data protection clauses published or approved by the relevant data protection regulator), together with enforceable rights and effective legal remedies for you; or
- a specific exception applies under data protection law.
You can contact us by using the details available in this policy if you would like a list of countries benefiting from a UK adequacy decision or for any other information about protection of personal data when it is transferred abroad.
Cookies and other tracking technologies
A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your device (e.g. computer, smartphone or other electronic device) when you use our website. We use cookies on our website. These help us recognise you and your device and store some information about your preferences or past actions.
For further information on cookies, our use of ‘cookies’, when we will request your consent before placing them and how to disable them, please see our Cookie Policy.
Your rights
You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:
| Access | The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data |
|---|---|
| Rectification | The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data |
| Erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten) | The right to require us to delete your personal data—in certain situations |
| Restriction of processing | The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data—in certain situations, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data |
| Data portability | The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party—in certain situations |
| To object | The right to object: —at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling); —in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data, e.g. processing carried out for our legitimate interests unless we demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests or for establishing, exercising or defending legal claims |
| Not to be subject to automated individual decision making | The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you |
| The right to withdraw consent | If you have provided us with a consent to use your personal data you have a right to withdraw that consent at any time You may withdraw consent by contacting us by using the details available in this policy Withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn |
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:
- complete a data subject request form, available on our website at www.beaconlaw.co.uk; or
- email, call or write to us in accordance with this policy; and
- provide enough information to identify yourself (e.g. your full name, address and client or matter reference number) and any additional identity information we may reasonably request from you; and
- let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.
Keeping your personal data secure
We have implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to keep your personal data confidential and secure from unauthorised access, use and disclosure. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your personal data will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We require our business partners, suppliers and other third parties to implement appropriate security measures to protect personal data from unauthorised access, use and disclosure.
We also have procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are required to do so.
How to complain
Please contact us by using the details available in this policy if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your personal data. We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have.
You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner (the UK data protection regulator). For more information, please see our data protection complaints policy or contact us by using the details available in this policy if you would like further information.
Changes to this privacy policy
We may change this privacy policy from time to time. When we do we will publish the updated version on our website and ask for your consent to the changes if legally required.
Updating your personal data
We take reasonable steps to ensure your personal data remains accurate and up to date. To help us with this, please let us know if any of the personal data you have provided to us has changed, e.g. your surname or address.
How to contact us
You can contact us and/or our Data Protection Officer by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, to exercise a right under data protection law or to make a complaint.
Our contact details are shown below:
| Our contact details | Our Data Protection Officer’s contact details |
|---|---|
| Beacon Law Shirley House 12 Gatley Road |
Mr Mark Brierley Beacon Law Shirley House 12 Gatley Road Cheadle Cheshire SK8 1PY |
| info@beaconlaw.co.uk | Mark.brierley@beaconlaw.co.uk |
| 0161 428 1234 | 0161 428 1234 |
Do you need extra help?
If you would like this policy in another format (e.g. audio, large print, braille) please contact us by using the details available in this policy.